Stare master: The eyes have it in show-no-mercy Stagg stare-off

STOCKTON - In life, many twists of fate turn on who blinks first. It was never truer than last week at Stagg High School.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - In life, many twists of fate turn on who blinks first. It was never truer than last week at Stagg High School.

For 4 minutes, 37.2 seconds as 80-odd students watched in hushed silence in the school's library, math teacher Kathy Sady stared down history teacher Stewart Jacoby.

Finally, Jacoby batted an eye, and Sady had achieved her most important victory on the way to repeating as Stagg's faculty staring champion. But it took only 55 seconds for student champion Annamarie Cunningham to out-catatonic Sady for the overall Stagg title.

"It felt like longer," said the 17-year-old Cunningham, a senior. "My contacts, I could feel them separating from my eyes because they were drying out."

All of this was for a good cause. Stagg students spent last week conducting a campus cleanup and staging dance, walking and trivia contests, in each case collecting cans of food for the Emergency Food Bank.

In the end, the students amassed about 1,300 cans to be donated in time for Christmas. The events also boosted school spirit. Jacoby said it was "an immensely important week for building a campus community." Senior Carol Amaya, president of the Key Club, which organized the week, said it "let students know there's a lot of hunger in Stockton."

The mysterious Sady, who declined to give her age, won last year's title in a four-minute stare-off. She dressed for this year's contest in a black gown and said she was proud "to reign over the realm of stare-dom." Her unblinking prowess, she said, is hard-won.

"I've been glaring at my daughter her entire life and it probably started there," she said. "And then, becoming a teacher, it just kind of comes naturally."